


After the Conference

by Persiflage



Series: Mashed Up Tropes Fics [6]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bernie Wolfe: World's Okay-est Lesbian, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, First Kiss, First Time, Mash-up, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Sleeping Together, Trope de Trope, Tumblr Prompt, conferences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27172573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Canon Divergence: Bernie's never worked at Holby City General, but she is leading a trauma surgery conference in Holby, where she meets Serena.
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Series: Mashed Up Tropes Fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960414
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	After the Conference

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an Anon for the Mashed Up Tropes Meme on Tumblr, for the tropes: 41. First Kiss and 95. Sleep Intimacy.

As first kisses go, it is undoubtedly the sweetest that Serena Campbell’s ever experienced. As a first kiss for the first time with a woman the sweetness is compounded by a thrill of excitement that is quite separate from the usual thrill that she experiences on kissing a man for the first time. 

Bernie, that is, Major Berenice Wolfe, trauma surgeon extraordinaire and formerly of the RAMC, is in Holby to present a series of papers and training sessions to any and all hospital staff, whether from NHS Trust hospitals like Holby City General (where Serena is deputy CEO and clinical lead of AAU) or St James’ (the private hospital where the Major’s ex-husband works as an orthopaedic surgeon) who wish to learn more about trauma medicine and whose CEOs can wrangle them the time and money to attend. Henrik Hanssen, CEO of Holby City and Serena’s boss, hadn’t hesitated to ask both Serena (as head of AAU) and Connie Beauchamp (as head of the ED) to draw up a list of staff whom they felt would most benefit from attending one or more sessions. Then they had to re-work their staffing rotas to allow as many people to attend as they could manage. 

Holby City, Hanssen let them understand, needed to do better with regard to the treatment and aftercare of trauma victims, and he had it in mind to get a proper trauma unit built at Holby with the expert assistance of the Major, if she was willing. On hearing this Serena couldn’t help wondering in just which department the new unit would be based and whether she’d have to fight Connie for it. Of course, once she’d been introduced to Major Wolfe, Serena had immediately felt absolutely determined that AAU would be the ward to host the trauma unit. The Major is fiercely intelligent, fiercely passionate about her work, and utterly gorgeous. The latter realisation had thrown Serena for a loop for a little while, but by the second day of her attendance, Serena had accepted the fact that, for the first time ever, she was seriously attracted to another woman. From the moment she laid eyes on the lithe, long legged woman with the messy blonde hair, deep brown eyes, and thin pink lips, Serena was done for, and it had taken a real effort on that first day to properly focus and concentrate on what Bernie was teaching them.

It’s at the end of the fourth and penultimate day that Serena finally gets up the nerve to invite the blonde surgeon for a drink and to her relief Bernie accepts with alacrity. They make their way from the conference centre where Bernie’s been lecturing to the bar of the hotel where Bernie’s staying and Serena orders herself a glass of her favourite tipple, Shiraz, and a whisky for Bernie.

They spend the first half hour talking shop while slowly lowering the level of alcohol in their glasses. The second half hour, with the appropriate refills, moves onto more personal conversation.

“Who was that potato-faced bloke I saw having a go at you yesterday after the morning session?”

The Major splutters, then presses the back of her right hand (which is still holding her glass) to her mouth. “Potato-faced?” she queries.

Serena arches an elegant eyebrow. “I stand by my description,” she says, and Bernie smirks at her, warmth and humour in her deep brown eyes.

“That was my ex. Marcus Dunn. Orthopaedic surgeon at St James’. Thinks he’s God’s gift to both St James’ and Orthopaedics. His colleagues, however, describe him as barely more than mediocre and one, rather more indiscreet than the rest, reckons Marcus’ll never make department head, no matter how many rounds of golf he plays with the CEO, or how many times he buys dinner for Max and his wife.”

“So why was he haranguing you?” asks Serena, full of curiosity about Bernie.

“Because Cam, my – our – son has decided to do his first F1 rotation in London, at the Royal Hope. Which is, coincidentally, where I did my first F1 rotation. Marcus despises NHS hospitals. He thinks the NHS should be privatised, American style.”

“Well you’d better keep him out of my way, or I’ll box his ears for him,” Serena says heatedly, the alcohol making her pugnacious.

Bernie chuckles. “That I’d like to see,” she says, before adding, “Can we not talk about him?”

“Of course,” Serena says easily. “Tell me more about yourself.”

Bernie sets her empty glass on the table in front of them. “I think I’d rather not talk any more, if you don’t mind.” She takes Serena’s glass from her hand, then leans in and places her lips on Serena’s. It takes very little time for Serena to kiss back, and only moments for her to plunge her hand into the Major’s gloriously soft blonde hair that she’s been aching to touch all week.

Bernie cups her neck and the back of her head; those long, elegant fingers that Serena’s been watching intently for the last four days prove to be as strong and capable when it comes to holding a woman as they are in wielding a scalpel or a bone saw.

Serena melts into the plush banquette that’s behind her, feeling a throbbing warmth between her legs and a weakness in her knees. She cannot remember ever wanting anyone as much as she wants the Major in her sinfully tight black jeans and a black shirt with its sleeves shoved back to her elbows, enough buttons unfastened at the top to give Serena tantalising glimpses of deliciously prominent collarbones and the hollow of her throat.

Serena doesn’t come back to herself until Bernie’s hand lands on her knee, and then she’s jolted back to reality in painful fashion when her mobile phone begins to ring in her handbag. She gasps as Bernie pulls away, then cannot help licking her lips even as she fumbles her phone from the depths of her bag.

Bernie shifts, putting more distance between their bodies, and Serena reaches out to clasp her knee, squeezing it and mouthing ‘Wait. Please?’ at the blonde who, after a moment, nods.

The phone call is from her nephew Jason, to remind her that she’s meant to be picking up fish and chips for their dinner tonight. She assures him she hasn’t forgotten – a white lie since she had, in fact, forgotten the existing of everything outside of Bernie’s mouth on her own and her hands roaming Serena’s curves, as if mapping them for future reference.

She cuts the call with Jason, then looks at Bernie. “Are you leaving Holby straight after tomorrow’s final session?”

The blonde shakes her head. “Actually, I’m staying the entire weekend. My kids, who’ve been estranged from me since Marcus and I began divorce proceedings, have agreed to a meet up on Sunday for afternoon tea.”

“In that case, would you like to come to dinner tomorrow? Jason is going to Allan’s for the long weekend, so I’ll be all on my own.” She bats her eyelashes as coquettishly as she knows how and Bernie laughs. It’s not a decorous laugh, by any means, reminding Serena all too strongly of a goose honking, but it’s a fitting laugh for this extraordinary woman.

“I’d love to have dinner with you,” Bernie says.

Serena grins, then licks her lips. “Would it be terribly forward of me to suggest you bring a toothbrush?”

“Serena Campbell, are you asking me to spend the weekend with you?”

“Well, um, yes, that is to say, only if you want to,” she says, stumbling uncharacteristically over the offer.

“I’d be delighted,” Bernie says. “I’ll let the hotel know I’ll be booking out tomorrow instead of Monday.”

Dinner the following evening is scarcely registered by either of the women eating it: they only have eyes and thoughts for each other, and Serena swears that Bernie is devouring her with her eyes. The hungry heat of her gaze leaves Serena wet and wanting in a way she’s never been before, and it takes a real effort of concentration to load the dishwasher and set it going before Bernie pounces on her, her mouth and hands going to Serena’s mouth and waist with great eagerness. She soon finds a strong, muscular thigh pressing between her legs, and she greedily rocks herself against it, kissing and kissing and kissing Bernie until they’re both weak-kneed and desperate for air.

Then the trauma surgeon scoops her off her feet (eliciting a shriek of surprise) and Serena finds herself carried at speed down the hallway, then up the stairs. 

“Where am I going?” demands Bernie, and Serena directs her to her room. Bernie uses Serena’s feet to push the door open, rather than putting her down, then carries her across to the bed onto which she’s half lowered, half tossed.

When Bernie straightens up again Serena grabs her wrist and tugs, toppling the blonde across her lap.

“And now that I’ve got you where I want you,” she says. “I’m going to ravish you.”

“Oi,” Bernie says, her tone outraged. “If anyone’s going to be doing any ravishing around here, it’s me.”

“Is that so?”

“You’re the novice in this situation,” Bernie says with a shrug of feigned indifference.

“And you think I’m a pushover, is that it?”

“Well, I did just carry you from the kitchen to your bedroom.” Bernie’s eyes are dancing with mirth and Serena has to bite back a grin in response.

“Oh, so what, you’re a big macho army medic, now, are you?” 

“If you like.” Bernie rapidly unbuttons Serena’s silk blouse, peeling it from her body like a master chef peeling vegetables for an exquisite meal. Serena’s trousers are the next go, swiftly followed by her camisole top, leaving her in just her matching bra and knickers.

“Oh, I say, ding dong,” Bernie says with a humorous leer in her voice. “I guess I am getting lucky tonight.”

She leans down and kisses Serena hard on the mouth, then begins trailing hot, wet kisses all the way down her body until she’s writhing beneath her.

~ ~ ~ ~

On Saturday morning Serena’s consciousness swims up from the depths of sleep with an insistence she’s quite unused to. Eventually she opens her eyes, registering as she does so that there’s an unfamiliar weight half pinning her body to her bed, and there’s a growing heat between her legs. It’s this latter that clarifies the former – Major Berenice Wolfe is here in her bed, her legs tangled with Serena’s, her breath puffing softly against the back of her neck, stirring the short hairs there.

Serena lets out a soft sigh at the realisation that dinner and its subsequent follow up were not a vivid dream after all, but the actual events of the previous evening. 

Bernie murmurs something indecipherable against the nape of her neck, then presses her lips to Serena’s skin, and the brunette practically melts into the bed. She is wholly unused to intimacy of any sort since Jason came into her life (not that she in any way blames him for Robbie’s ignorant attitudes towards her nephew), and the intimacy that comes from actually sleeping with someone (as opposed to engaging in sex with them) is something she’d somehow forgotten she particularly enjoys. Bernie’s right arm is under her body and wrapped around her waist, her hand resting on Serena’s left hip. Her left arm is higher up her torso and her hand is cupping Serena’s right breast. As soon as she becomes fully aware of that fact her nipple stiffens against the trauma surgeon’s broad palm.

The heat between her thighs intensifies and she shifts against Bernie’s right leg, which is between her own, while her left leg is propped over Serena’s left leg as they’re both lying on their right sides on Serena’s side of the bed. 

“Mmm?” murmurs Bernie, her lips pressing a little more insistently against Serena’s neck, before her nose shifts to bump against the back of Serena’s left ear. 

“Nothing,” Serena whispers. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmhmm.” Bernie’s right leg shifts again rather more purposefully this time.

Serena sighs softly. “Are you always this frisky first thing in the morning?” she asks.

Bernie chuckles quietly. “Only when I’ve got a gorgeous surgeon in my bed.”

“Technically, I’m the one with the gorgeous surgeon in her bed.”

Bernie chuckles again as her right palm rubs against Serena’s stiff nipple before her fingers curl around Serena’s breast. “Think I can make you come like this?” she whispers against Serena’s neck. “Just my hand on your breast and my leg between yours.”

“Oh god.” Serena groans as she feels a surge of heat between her thighs, feels desire tighten and coil in her belly. “Yes,” she mutters. 

Twenty minutes later she’s melted into the bed again, and Bernie eases her down onto her back, shifting away while she does so, then moving back in closer once Serena’s settled. She leans down and gives Serena a soft, languorous kiss, then shifts so that she’s pressed against Serena’s side. Her right arm slides under Serena’s neck and her left arm wraps across her waist.

“We don’t have to get up just yet, do we?” Bernie asks, her voice reminiscent of liquid gold.

“Not just yet, no.”

“Good.” Bernie hums gently against her shoulder, then her muscles begin to slacken and relax. Within moments she’s fast asleep again, and Serena, who’s been quite delightfully worn out, closes her eyes and allows her body to succumb to sleep again.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://pers-books.tumblr.com/post/629520650210607104/for-the-tropes-mash-up-can-i-request-41-and-95).


End file.
